Turducken: A Photo Diary

[Rummm]

A fellow BBQ enthusiast (Jeremy Schmit) shared this with me and he has allowed me to share it with you. Not too shabby for his first time out 

After reading your fantastic suggestions, I opted to prepare a turducken for the family at Xmas.  The event was well documented with photos, and I thought I'd share the process with you and your readers.  I did few internet searches and watched a few youtube videos of the final process, but the final recipe was improvised from start to finish.

Key ingredients:
20 lb. turkey
5 lb duck
5 lb chicken
2 lb bacon

Stuffing:
1 lb. sausage
cornbread
white bread
2 apples
raisins
dried apricots
4 sticks celery
1 onion
turducken broth

First, we have the three birds


And here I am deboning the turkey


Hmmm, the brine pot is already overflowing and we still have to add the duck.  Time to dig out my brewing pots.


Ok, next day and the birds are brined and ready to be assembled.  First we stuff the turkey.



It is a little hard to see in this image, but look at the bacon "flak jacket" (as my brother called it) surrounding the turkey breast.  Not only is there bacon between the breast and the stuffing, but I separated the breast from the skin so I could put strips of bacon in between (my own little innovation).  There is no way this breast is going to dry out.

Now we add the duck.



There really isn't much left of the duck after removing the bones and skin (and head and feet).  I opted to skin the duck because I figured there would be plenty of fat coming from the bacon.

Now we prepare the chicken.  Here it is with a layer of bacon and a layer of stuffing.



Now it is time to put it all together.  But, we have two problems.  First, how the hell are we going to get this thing closed?



Second, we don't even have one of those needles used to sew up meat.  After 5 minutes with a paperclip and a pair of pliers we have this:



Ok, if I pull the skin this way...now add a couple stitches over there...good, now I'll push here and you sew there...done.



Gotta give big thanks to my brother who was a huge help with the planning, boning, and assembly.

Here it is on the smoker.  It barely fits.



I heard that stuffing can taste bad if it is smoked, so I covered the cavity opening and the lower seam with strips of aluminum foil.  There was no ill taste to the stuffing, but I'm not sure how much the foil mattered.

Possibly the best thing that happened this Xmas was my 2 yr old waking up screaming at 5 am.  Because of that I was able to start the smoker at 5:30.  This ended up being crucial because it took over 12 hours (at 200 to 250 degrees) to get the stuffing inside this monster up to 165.

Finally, on the dinner table.



I put a very low priority on presentation (notice the disposable serving pan) but that looks pretty darned good.

And here is the cross section after we carved into it.  I'm pulling back the turkey skin to show off the bacon layer.



After all that work, I was very nervous about how it would turn out.  I shouldn't have been.  It was amazing.  The turkey breast was so juicy, so tender, and so flavorful.  Everyone swore it was the best they had ever had.  I'm not sure I have one of these in me every year (although it was a lot of fun too), but I could see it becoming a tradition on alternating years.

[drholly]

WOW!

Great pictorial - thank you for sharing. I've wanted to do one of these for a long time. It's "our turn" to host the holidays for my wife's extended family (40 some folks) this year... might be the time to spring one on them... 

David

[mikecorn.1]

Impressive. Looks great.


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk

[sliding_billy]

I would eat the heck out of that, but I can't even imagine preparing it.